​Tasawouf, or Sufism is a school in Islam founded to deepen the spiritual knowledge about God. And that goes through a deep understanding of oneself that leads to the true understanding of the Divine. Sufism has different schools and ways, and it exist in many different countries with different levels. ​In Senegal, where Islam is the religion of almost 95% of the population, Sufism exists immensely in the country. You can perceive that even during the first day in this country. Wherever you go in the streets, you see the pictures of the Marabous (leaders of Sufism), and most of the shops here are named after these leaders. In general, we can find in this country at least four “Tariqas” - Murid, Tijen, Khadr, and Laine, which refers to the way or the school of Sufism that each person follows. Each Tariqa has its own rituals that are slightly different from the other, has its holy place where the Sheikh and/ or the Founder is buried, and has its day during the year when its followers perform a pilgrimage-like trip to its site.

​When I first arrived to the village where I am currently serving, people thought that I was an American Peace Corps volunteer. But when I told them that I am Moroccan and Muslim, they were surprised and the following interest was which Tariqa I follow, which I answered by none. Getting to know that I am a Muslim with no Tariqa was nonsense to the community. Here, for the most part, there is no Islam outside of Sufism, so, finally, we compromised that I choose one.​Most of the village follows the Khadr Tariqa which was founded by Abd-el-Kader Jelani who was an Iranian living in Iraq. Being a member of this Tariqa means that there are more rituals that you should do than other ones. One of them is called Dayra which is a meeting or a session being held by the young girls and boys each Thursday night to sing religious songs about the prophet and the leader of the Tariqa. In my room, the family hangs the pictures of their Marabou and his sons.

“The Sufism and its leaders have a very important role in the lives of the Senegalese”, as some of my Senegalese friends state. “As Arabic is the language of Quran and as most of Senegalese do not understand it, the Marabous play a vital role to facilitate that and make people understand their religion”, they elaborate. Therefore, the Marabous tie the link between Muslims and their religion. However, some Marabous surpass this role and act as if they have the exclusive right to communicate with Allah, i.e. everyone should go through them to reach God, which some people, unfortunately, believe in.

Each one in the village talks about the legend of their Marabous. A person in my site told me that his Marabou wrote during his life more than one and half ton of books. Another person talked about how the French plane couldn’t bombard the residence of their Marabous or even fly above it. I listen and pretend to agree sometimes, because doubting that, as I have before, gets me into intense debates.

The Marabous have a big influence on their followers to the extent that one Marabou can gather hundreds of thousands of people in one call. During the colonization, the Marabous played an important role to make people revolt again France and fight against the French afterwards. However, France succeeded to make some of them work with it and even convinced the Senegalese to fight with France during the WWII.

Politically, we may say that no politician can become the president of the country if they don’t have the support of the big Marabous in the country. As long as the political leaders are aware of this fact, they always try to use the religious leaders in order to reach their political interests. And here we can notice the contradiction on how the secular politicians, who refuse the interference of religion with politics, rush during the elections to get the help from the religious leader.

However, no one can deny the benefits of this Islamic way on the Senegalese. Today, Senegal is one of the peaceful countries in West Africa. Senegal is a country where we have Muslims and Christians living together, we never hear of clashes due to these differences. In addition, Senegalese come from different ethnicities, and each ethnicity has its own language and background, but that doesn’t threaten their stability either.​As you read above Sufism in Senegal has its own specialty. Aside from a few bad practices from some “religious leaders”, this phenomenon has benefited the people here. At least people can feel that they have a reference which they trust and follow. Moreover, Sufism helps to assure the stability and peace of the country.

The celebration days are great events that any person living in a new culture should be curious to discover. In fact I may say that there are some similarities in the way humanity expresses its happiest moments as well as its bad experiences, but each community differs in the details and that’s what is important.For example, we (almost) celebrate in Senegal in same way we do in Morocco. We invite people, prepare food, dance around music, and so on. However, there is a difference because neither the Senegal food nor the music and the dance are like the Moroccan ones.

The last week we had a special ceremony in our village. Our family size is augmented because the son of the village chief had a new baby girl named Aminatu. After 40 days of her birth it was the time to celebrate the arrival of the new baby.​During that day the villagers got up early to prepare for this day, and it’s usually the young men and women that take care of everything. They start by slaughtering a calf and a goat. The calf had been bought one week before that day, and to slaughter it we needed five powerful men. The children were very motivated to assist that and they brought the big bowl to convey the meat.

To prepare the meals which are the rice and the meat (what we called “ceebu yepp”) we need to prepare a traditional fireplace with stone and using the firewood. They brought the firewood from around the village fields. The pots we used in the cooking were huge. The first thing was to wash them before covering them from outside with mud so not to be affected by the fire.

Because we had a huge number of the guests, so we needed the same amount of rice. This latter needed to be cleaned from impurities, so this is another mission that had to be done in time.

While the young men prepare the meals, the girls of the village are the one that serve the food to the guests. The girls wore uniform green T-shirts with the word “welcome” written in the back especially for like this moments.After the meals, the music starts in the village. The village music group that played the traditional music originated from Mali and are called the “Djimbee.” They made everyone shake their body, especially the women and the children. The dancers moved in a circular way shaping a circle and each time one person gets inside, but it shouldn’t be children, which is why sometimes a grown girl is the one who organizes so to prevent the kids from entering inside and make sure they dance outside. This music really ignites enthusiasm; and as long as the people never get enough of music, more is always wanted and played. One person who came from the city brought speaker systems and amplifiers to add more ambiance.

Well, in this blog I tried to give you an overview on how we celebrate the newborn in my site Keur Simbara.Meet you in another blog and story. Thank you for reading!

Influential people are those who impact or shape the way the others act or do things, right? Our Akhilleus that we will read about in this blog is Demba Diawara. 83 years old. He is the Imam and chef of Keur Simbara village. That man has done more for his village and several other villages than what other NGOs may have.

​Demba Diawara has been working with Toastan NGO for nearly 20 years. He is engaged in a movement for the abandonment of the female genital cutting and stopping child-forced marriage. He has walked to 348 villages in order to raise awareness concerning the wrong habits people in the villages practice. He never had formal education; however his commitment to his work makes him gain huge respect in his community and elsewhere.Due to his work as an activist, Demba Diawara received much recognition from world NGOs and even some other influential people. He traveled to London, Paris, Brussels, and Malaysia to assist conferences and pass training. He also visited United States three times, and among the people he met was the current US president Barack Obama in the White House, and the Former US President Jimmy Carter who offered him a signed copy of his book “The White House Diary". He told me: “I spent three days with Jimmy Carter. He is a great man”

He knows Arabic and can read the Coran as well, that is why when I held a meeting with the community, he immediately stated: “the most important thing for us in this village is education, especially reading Arabic and Coran and knowing how to pray. We are so glad to have a volunteer that can help us learn Arabic and some Coran."

I always enjoy spending time with my host grandparent and the whole family as well. While my Grandpa is preparing attaya (tea), we discuss his work as an activist, his achievement, the countries he traveled to, and the world-famous personalities he met.

Demba Diawara has the right to be proud of himself and his achievements as well. We can take him as an example to prove that the key to community development is the community itself. There are some people in these community, like Dembara, with some help can flourish.I hope this blog gives you a little idea about this man because I am sure that it’s not sufficient to talk about all the marvelous things that man has done for the others. Anyway, we will meet him in other blogs for sure.

My amazing journey as a volunteer with CoprsAfrica/Maroc is finished; however, another one has started but this time with corpsafrica in its start-up program in Senegal. January, 28th was the time date we (Walid and I) headed for Dakar. We had two days to stay in Dakar before we went to Thies city to start the training. Thus, we had the opportunity to chill and visit places there.

Among the great places we visited was Île de Gorée (i.e. "Gorée Island"). A gorgeous island located 2 kilometers at sea from the main harbor of Dakar. It is not big (It is an 18.2-hectare), but it has a heavy history. From this place the some African slaves were transported to the new world. The Maison des Esclaves (House of Slaves) is one of the oldest houses on the island. It is now used as a tourist destination to show the horrors of the slave trade throughout the Atlantic world. To get into the island, we took the ferry. The ferry trip takes 20 minutes and you can book a tour if you wish to from the docks in Dakar. Goree Island is calm compared with the noisy streets of Dakar. There are no cars on the island and it is small enough to find your way around on your own although there will be plenty of "Guides" offering you their service. Across the island many people are selling traditional tricks. It was there where the first time we tested some Senegal juices, e.g., “Bissap”. The island was visited famous people such us president bush and Obama, the singer Akon, and others. In general, we had great moments in the Island.

After that we headed for Thies city to start the Pre Service Training. We met with the other Senegali volunteers there. The training started with several presentations from different intervenient about different topics. From agriculture through civic engagement to management. After the first week we started the First aid Training. During The last two weeks Design Thinking Training which is a process we follow to solve problem. We also visited two villages during this training in order to practice Design Thinking which enabled us to get an idea about the communities, and the life in the village.

After we finished the Pre-Service-Training, we had a swearing in ceremony which took place in hotel Sokhamon in Dakar. It was assisted by many guests such as the Moroccan ambassador representative in addition to the volunteers, and CorpsAfrica staffs. Walid and I had delivered a Wolof speech there which was cool as we enjoyed it. Several Senegal media assisted the ceremony because it helps CorpsAfrica to be known across the country. Officially, we are CorpsAfrica Volunteers.

After the swearing in ceremony, the Senegali volunteers left Dakar heading for their sites while we stayed for another 15 days in order to gets an extensive Wolof language training. The Wolof training was intensive; however, it was so exciting. We had nearly two weeks to get the basics that will help us communicate with people in the community. We learnedit in ACI Baobab center. Honestly, the center is good; they are professional in their works, and everything is well organized. Each day before when I reach the center, I greet people there using the Wolof language which was really amazing and funny things; then we got in the class. What surprised us was that the Wolof contains some words that are original from Arabic language such us “ci miisaal” (for example), “salam maleekon” (Hi), “diine” (religion), and most of the names of the days, e.g., “Altine, taalata, allarba” (I.e. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday).

Learning Wolof in that center was an opportunity for us to meet different people from different countries. Some of them are there in a student exchange program to learn languages usually French and Wolof. Some others are already have a good career and are there to learn the language. Many of them have already been in morocco, and know about its traditions, food, and geography. We stayed, while we were learning Wolof, with the host families. My host family was great. I had mom, two host brothers and two host sisters. My mom is very kind and always prepares delicious dishes like “Yassa Ginaar” (yassa chicken), Yassa djeen (yassa fish), and Moroccan couscous. She is really interested and involved in politics; she is a member in the party of the president. As I am writing this blog she went out to vote in the referendum that is organized today in Senegal. What was surprising to me is that the family knows morocco very well; my host sister spent three years in Fes city studying there, their cousin lived five years in morocco, and my host brother visited morocco three times. My integration with them was quick; I even felt that I am with my family. We spent the time discussing and comparing what morocco and Senegal have in common, and how they differ. ​In this blog, I tried to give I brief description of what I have done after nearly living two months in Senegal. After two days, I am moving to my community, so stay tuned; the show is about to get started☺.​